


an english werewolf in new york

by outwardbound93



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-21 20:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13748457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outwardbound93/pseuds/outwardbound93
Summary: it's the summer after freshman year, and niall expects to spend it dragging his feet through spanish II, pulling shifts at bobst library, and bickering with his bratty housemate. he certainly doesn't expect to meet harry, or for harry to be a werewolf.





	an english werewolf in new york

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dramaturgicallycorrect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/gifts).



> HAPPY BDAY, BUD. #EVERYTHING IS WOLVES

_may_

Niall decides to swing by &pizza on his way home from the afternoon shift at Bobst Library. His staff lanyard jingles merrily against his chest with every step. They’re in that brief, dreamlike lull between the maddening crush of spring finals and the first summer session of classes, so he only had a couple of booktrucks to reshelve today. He even had time to linger for a chat with one of the library’s most frequent visitors, an assistant professor with worry lines etched into his forehead like he’d fallen asleep poring over one of the thousand books he always seemed to be reading.

Niall thinks he gets the feeling. He’d been so sick of the backpack loaded with textbooks, flash cards, granola bar wrappers, and highlighters by the end of the semester that he’d trotted down the stairs after his last final and promptly dumped the entire thing into the recycling bin at the corner of Waverly and Washington Square.

It felt great for a moment, and then he thought about the resale value of his textbooks, so he’d had to fish them out. Still, it started his summer off on the right foot: thoughtless, meandering, like a summer right out of childhood, when a kid’s biggest concern is getting home in time for dinner. Dusk settles comfortably over Greenwich Village with the soft, cozy familiarity of a blanket fort.

&pizza only sells full pies, so Niall splurges. He puts the order in on his phone and sets off across Washington Square Park so that it’ll be ready for pickup by the time he gets there. Commuter traffic is just starting to trickle onto 8th Street. Niall’s used to everything hopping with students, but since NYU let out for summer break a couple of weeks ago, the area around campus and campus itself seem to have gone almost eerily quiet. He finds he doesn’t mind it as much as he might’ve expected; the mild weather and quietness just make the days seem longer and more languid, a slow unfurling.

Niall pauses to listen to the violinist parked outside 8th Street Station. Penn and Grand Central are worth passing through just for the buskers stood next to their open cases, the music seeming to swell as it traveled down the tunnels. A number of commuters cast the violinist sour looks for blocking the flow of foot traffic, so Niall digs into his pocket for the spare change he got for his bagel this morning and drops it into the busker’s upturned hat.

&pizza is a madhouse when Niall arrives, so he gives his name to the girl at the counter and goes to wait outside, where she’s promised to let him know when his order’s up. She’s cute, and ordinarily Niall might consider asking her out, but a steady flow of customers pours both in and out of the restaurant, and her hair is frizzing out of the tidy braid that she put it up in. Maybe next time.

Next door, Writers Room Inc. is fully stocked with people sat at curving desks with their laptops open in front of them, their faces awash in the bluish glow of a computer screen. Niall always assumed that those are students frantically trying to get their assignments done, but it’s summer now, and he’s not so sure. Perhaps they’re all writers hoping to churn out the next Great American Novel for the next generation’s required reading. Niall wonders what stories they’re telling.

“Neil?” the cute, frizzy-haired server calls, a fresh white pizza box in her hand. Niall doesn’t bother correcting her. He just offers her a warm smile and his thanks and moves out of the way for the next impatient customer, a guy in his mid-twenties who’s making it a point to tap his shoe and check his watch with a gusty sigh, like that’ll make the line move faster. Niall catches the server’s eye and she gives him a subtle eye roll, so he’s laughing as he moves away.

He digs his headphones out of his pocket and sets his music on shuffle for the walk home. The foot traffic steadily gets heavier and more crowded until Niall turns off Waverly to cut back through Washington Square Park. The pigeon man, Al, has already cleared out for the night. The sky is streaked with red, blue, and deep violet, and the Arch’s shadow stretches darkly to the end of the block, where rainwater from last week’s storm still pools in the gutter.

Explosions in the Sky comes on, so Niall slows to change songs; he can’t listen to them anymore without feeling like he ought to be cramming for a chemistry final. When he looks up, he notices a man at the edge of the park, on the corner of south and west Washington. Niall’s first thought is that he’s a mugger, but the guy doesn’t appear to be lurking so much as lost; he keeps looking down at his phone, pinching his bottom lip, and then looking up as if trying to make sense of a map.

Probably a tourist, then. Niall goes back to sifting through his options for a different song to listen to. The Eagles are always a good choice, but they sound too much like a road unfurling in the desert with nothing but jagged outcroppings of rock, prickly cacti, and the endless sky continuing on and on in every direction. He puts on Fleetwood instead.

Niall’s just settling into the familiar strains of “I Do,” the hissing cymbals filling his head like a balloon airing up, when someone touches his shoulder. He shoots into the air with a half-strangled yelp. The fresh, white pizza box in his arms falls to the ground with a splat. The box came open in the fall and while the pizza remains thankfully inside, there’s a distinctly bloodlike splatter of tomato sauce on the toe of Niall’s converse.

“Oh,” says the tourist Niall had seen on the streetcorner, his eyes wide when Niall turns to look. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Niall sighs. “It was just a Moonstruck special.” He can hear the sadness in his own voice. At least the pizza hadn’t fallen out of the box. Niall thinks about explaining his situation to the cute frizzy-haired server, and then he thinks about her tense smile and the sheen of sweat building on her forehead, and he dismisses the thought. His landlady’s always getting onto him about eating healthier, anyway.

“A what?” the tourist’s voice sounds strangled.

Niall collects his pizza box, stands, and pushes the bill of his cap back on his head. The tourist straightens when Niall does, though he goes on twisting a silver ring round and round his third finger. His elastic face is all bunched up with concern, like a toddler’s, and he’s wearing a pair of kneeless blue jeans and a white t-shirt. “Nothing,” Niall says. “Don’t matter.”

“I’m really so, so sorry,” says the tourist in a posh British accent. Niall _knew_ he wasn’t a local. “I saw you walk by, and I called out, only you must not have been able to hear me.”

“Yeah, sorry, I was - it was Fleetwood. What can you do?” He smiles in what he hopes is a friendly way, though he can feel his cheeks coloring, and rolls his eyes at himself. Niall shifts the pizza box in his arms so that the ID on his lanyard cuts into his stomach a little less.

“Certainly not _not_ crank it up,” the stranger says pleasantly. “That’s practically sacrilege.” He holds his hand out to Niall for a handshake like they’re old men, or characters in a Donna Tartt novel. Niall takes his hand, not least amused, careful to keep his grip firm. “I’m Harry.” Harry pushes his wilting fringe back and flashes Niall a smile, dimples sinking into his cheeks like cracks in a portrait. Niall feels his cheeks and the tips of his ears go warm.

“Niall,” he answers. “What are you doing wandering around here, anyway?”

Harry holds his arms out wide. “Appreciating a nice view,” he says.

“You’re lost, huh.” Niall clucks his tongue disapprovingly. New York City is a grid system. It’s not easy to get lost.

“You can’t be lost if you don’t know what you’re looking for,” Harry corrects him primly, a smirk drawing up the corner of his mouth.

Niall doesn’t dignify that with a comment. The thing is, Harry’s cute, and charming, and he likes Fleetwood Mac, so that’s enough for Niall to say, “Listen, I was on my way home, but,” he gestures with the battered pizza box in his hand. “What would you say to Chinese?”

Harry smiles properly, and Niall thinks, _yes, well worth that pizza._ “I’ll treat.”

“Yeah, you will,” Niall says, waiting for him to sputter before cracking a smile himself.

Harry’s gaze over the flickering electric candle perched on a little saucer full of glass marbles is warm and friendly; he’s unusually easy to talk to, easy to be around, like his brain is tuned into the same radio station as Niall’s. Like they’re hearing the world the same way, or something. It’s nice.

He listens to Harry chatter on about the cabby he met this morning and how his omelet was undercooked at breakfast and how a child stopped him in the middle of Grand Central to sell Girl Scout Cookies and, after he’d told her that he didn’t have any cash, told him she accepted credit, as well. “And she can’t have been more than five or six, Niall, I swear.”

“My nephew is four, and his mom is always on about him knowing more about computers than she does. I think they’re born with a phone in their hands now to be honest.”

“My mum thinks technology is rotting their brains,” Harry reports dutifully. He reaches over the table and goes for a piece of broccoli in Niall’s lo mein. Niall slaps his hand down and raises his chopsticks in a clear threat, startling Harry into a laugh.

“Lucky them,” says Niall. He doesn’t really let Harry pay; Niall’s in college, too, and he knows how it is. He rummages through the pockets of his cargo shorts and turns up a few stray dollars he was saving for laundry day. They step out into the relative cool of evening, Niall grateful for the sweatshirt he donned this morning to cover the Spaghettios stain on his shirt. He suggests checking to see if the IFC is playing anything good.

The theater’s running a special on supernatural flicks, it seems; the first _Twilight_ film, _Cursed, Teen Wolf,_ and of course, _An American Werewolf in London._

“That’s a coincidence,” Harry remarks, the two of them craning their heads back to read the marquee. Niall can see Harry’s Adam’s apple bob when he turns his head.

Niall hums curiously. “What do you mean?” he asks.

Harry pales slightly. He pulls his gaze away from the marquee and looks at Niall instead, his eyes roving over Niall’s face before settling on his eyes. It’s a particular sort of compliment when someone looks to you for comfort; Niall feels himself go pink. Harry forces a smile. “Oh, nothing,” Harry says.

Niall decides to shrug it off. “Want to just come back to mine and find something on Netflix?”

“Well,” Harry says, already turning down the street like he knows where he’s going, “I _do_ love a romantic comedy.”

“Absolutely not.”

The full depth of nighttime has settled over West Village and Greenwich, although it never gets very dark in New York City. Street lamps, flashing neon signs, headlights, and the warm pools of light on every apartment stoop hold the darkness aloft. Niall and Hary cut down sixth and catch Cornelia at an angle, Niall glancing both ways before jogging across the street next to the stretch of tattoo shops. The sound of buzzing needles never fails to put his teeth on edge.

Home is a converted brownstone in West Village that Niall shares with his landlady, her six-year-old son, and another renter named Tessa, an art student at Tisch, who locks Niall out of the bathroom every morning without fail, drips her hair dye onto his towels, and eats his chips. He would have set up camp in the bathroom one weekend just to prove a point except that she stayed up all night helping him cram for his art history midterm last semester.

Niall flips through the keys on his lanyard, Harry neither too close nor too far away. He unlocks the door and ushers in Harry first, who looks around curiously.

Luckily, Niall’s pretty neat. Still, an empty Styrofoam box of takeaway sits atop his full trash can, his blankets are a tangled nest, and a mountain of textbooks is heaped up around his half-finished Ikea shelf. Niall swears up and down they forgot to include all the pieces but privately, he figures he put it together wrong. Whatever the case, he’s concerned about overloading it and being crushed to death in his sleep.

“Cozy,” says Harry, who kicks off his Adidas and plops down on the floor, easy as that. “You mind if I charge my phone?”

“Nah, go ahead. Charger’s by the bed.” He hangs his lanyard on the closet door, the keys and IDs clinking against each other softly, sets his cap on the dresser, and runs a hand through his hair. When he turns back, Harry’s stood near the window in the corner, his head cocked interestedly. “What are you looking at?” Niall asks. He looks around. If he had a break-in, nothing was stolen, not even his ancient MacBook.

“Oh! Um,” Harry jumps and flounders, “Just, this.” He gestures at the mound of towels and blankets on the floor. “Do you have a squatter?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Niall laughs. “Jesus, if he helped with rent, though, I wouldn’t mind. But nah, it was for a dog.”

Harry asks “A dog?” Harry repeats, his voice going high. He clears his throat. “I mean, you have a dog?”

Niall shakes his head. “Nah. Toss it?” He opens his hands and Harry scoops up the mess, tosses it Niall’s way. Niall dumps the snarl of blankets into his overflowing hamper and shuts the closet door for good measure. “You remember that big storm we had the other day?” he asks. “He must’ve gotten out, or ran away, or something. Anyway, this stray woke me up whining at the door. Scared the shit out of me at first, you know, the thunder booming and lightning cracking. I thought it was Anthony messing with me.”

“Anthony?”

“My landlady’s kid.”

“He’s a bit of a menace?” Harry asks. He stretches out on his stomach, his shirt riding up just enough for Niall to see a narrow band of tan, soft skin, and the part of Niall that’s an old man wants to warn him about being more wary of complete strangers. But it smacks of hypocrisy. Pot, meet kettle.

“Nah, he’s a good kid.” Niall switches the overhead light off, flips on the light in the bathroom, and drops down near Harry on the floor at the foot of the bed.

“What happened to the dog?” Harry asks, to Niall’s surprise. Niall looks up from his ancient laptop lumbering to life. Niall pops his cuticle into his mouth.

“Ran out when Annie - Anthony - heard him barking and came down to play. We looked for him in the rain, but we couldn’t find him. He was a big dog, too. I didn’t want to risk calling animal control.”

His voice relieved, Harry says, “That’s good, then. That you - you know, yeah.” He laughs self-consciously.

“Yeah,” Niall says. Then, “Have you seen that Buzzfeed quiz that tells you what country you should live in based on what kind of dog you want?”

“No,” Harry says. He looks up and with a very serious voice, says, “That sounds incredible.”

Niall laughs. “Here.” He pulls up the webpage, and Harry shuffles over to rest his head on Niall’s lap. “Comfortable?” he asks, pleased when Harry hums. Harry insists they take the Pottermore sorting quiz next, so Niall dutifully clicks over. Harry leaves his head in Niall’s lap the whole while; his presence is both soft and heavy, like the way Niall feels about holding baby Theo. The computer screen washes the color out of Harry’s face, and for such a carefree person, he looks strangely tired, almost weary.

Maybe this is his first trip to New York. If so, then he’d gotten off the plane and come through customs at JFK, where the whole terminal always smells like Dunkin Donuts cinnamon coffee brewing on the percolator. Airports, Harry thought, are nice not because they tell you something about a city, but because they’re more or less the same all over the world, like McDonald’s. A fixed point. He redoubled his sweaty grip on his bag, hefted it over his shoulder, and hailed a cab outside. Then he took the LIR into the city.

The city itself looked surprisingly suburban until the train dove underground into Manhattan, where a whole network of subway tunnels thrives beneath the surface. A pre-recorded voice reeled off a long list of stations and transfers over the intercom, and commuters and tourists filled the car with the soft hum of conversation.

Harry would’ve been able to see his reflection in the window when the train was in darkness. Nobody ever sees themselves the way they are; they see themselves the way they think they are, so maybe Harry would’ve thought he still looked like God plucked a model off the runway and altered him for a children’s cartoon, like his sister once said.

The climb up the stairs to street level felt like emerging onto a different planet. Niall can just picture Harry turning a slow circle, a smile dawning across his face, and it strikes Niall that it’s Harry’s capacity for wonder that reminds him of a kid.

“Niall?” Harry prompts him. “It’s your turn. What kind of spell would you cast against a Death Eater?”

“Avada kedavra,” Niall answers, because he’s not a moron.

“You can’t kill a Death Eater, Niall,” Harry says.

Niall squints. “No, see? It’s the third, like, option.”

“No, I mean you,” says Harry. “You’re too sweet.”

Niall chews that over for a moment. Then, “Cruciatus, maybe.”

“You’d do Expelliarmus,” Harry argues like he already knows him. He carefully clicks on to the next question.  

Niall must fall asleep sometime after starting the third or fourth episode of _Stranger Things_ , because he wakes up to Harry mumbling something about getting home. They’re tangled up on the floor and Niall absolutely will not move before five a.m., so he slurs, “If you get up, I’ll punch you. Just stay.”

Harry murmurs something unintelligible, but he’s still there in the morning, his arm thrown over Niall’s hip. He smiles brightly at Niall like he’s just been waiting for him to wake up. “Well, well, well,” Harry says. “You didn’t turn into a pumpkin.”

“Did lose me glass slipper, though,” Niall jokes, swallowing a yawn. “What time’s it?”

He offered to take Rachel’s early shift for a little bit of extra cash, so he has just enough time to brush his teeth and get dressed before work. Harry taps his number into Niall’s phone with his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth; Niall watches him through the bathroom mirror while he brushes.

Niall sees Harry off at the subway station, Harry twisted around in his seat on the A so that he can offer Niall a glowing smile, his curls licking at his temples and the hinge of his jaw. He gestures to his phone, so Niall taps out a message to him on his walk to work.

Early summer light slants down through the tree branches like narrow rivers of honey. The air smells fresh and crisp as an apple, and his phone buzzes less than a minute later, Niall smiling before he even reads Harry’s response.

* * *

 

_june_

Niall’s phone buzzes again, and he groans, groping for it blindly in the pale light bleeding through his blinds. Motes of dust swirl in his AC’s wheezing, gasping breath. His phone vibrates twice more while Niall draws it into his dark cocoon of blankets. He turns the brightness of his phone all the way down and squints to read. His screen is awash with notifications from Harry, starting at 7:30am and continuing every five minutes for the past hour.

_Good morning!_

_Wake up sunshine i’m cmingawofn_

_Sorry, I meant coming over_

_Do you want a bagel???_

_I’ll get you a bagel_

_I got you a bagel_

_Nvm, i gave your bagel to a man on the subway_

Niall doesn’t bother reading the rest of the messages. He lets his phone drop on the floor, closes his eyes, and slips back into a doze. He’s distantly aware of the doorbell ringing upstairs, Gloria’s warm voice cutting through the cinnamon and vanilla-tinged haze of her french toast cooking, and Annie’s excited chatter weighed against a deliberate English drawl.

He rolls over in bed for a cool spot in the sheets; even with the air con on full blast, heat radiates through the gaps in the blinds and through the brick walls. Niall sighs, relaxing into the mattress. The door opens, and a set of footsteps carefully picks its way down the stairs. All is still, and then Harry pulls back the sheets in one quick and terrible motion and plasters himself to Niall’s back in their place.

“I hate you,” Niall tells him, refusing to move.

“Wake up!” Harry says, ignoring him altogether. Harry’s skin is warm even through his threadbare t-shirt, and he’s not shy about smoothing his soft, dry palms over Niall’s bare arms and back, either, like he’s not real until Harry’s touched him. Harry kisses his cheek and his ear and then he presses his face up against the back of Niall’s neck, nuzzling in. “Get up,” Harry says, letting his voice deepen into a growl.

Niall snores.

Harry lets out a sigh. His breath tickles the back of Niall’s ear, and then Niall feels the blunt press of Harry’s teeth on the back of his neck and the top of his shoulders, followed by Harry’s tongue. It’s a little weird, but so is Harry, and Niall doesn’t mind. Then his only warning is Harry’s smile unfurling against his skin before he digs his fingers into Niall’s ribs and starts tickling him. Niall flails wildly, and Harry rolls away with a bright, victorious smile that doesn’t abate even after Niall whomps him in the face with a pillow.

“Get away from me,” Niall says. He bites his lip to keep from laughing.

To his surprise, Harry does as told. He tumbles gracelessly off the bed, picks himself up, and marches over to Niall’s closet, where he starts rifling through his neat stacks of shorts and t-shirts. “It’s almost nine a.m.,” Harry informs him smartly. “The later we leave, the more sunburnt you’ll get, and the more you’ll whine about it.”

“So really your motives are selfish.”

Harry throws a pair of cutoffs and a sun-bleached tank top at Niall, and then he follows after. He perches on the edge of the bed, like maintaining a safe distance will ensure he doesn’t let Niall cuddle him down into a nap. He presses his thumb to the cleft in Niall’s chin, his eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully. “Yes,” Harry says, and then with a little slap to Niall’s cheek he hops off the bed and swans up the stairs, calling after, “Coney Island awaits, Niall!”

“I feel like it could probably wait a little longer,” Niall grumbles. He sits for a moment in relative silence, time stretching like gum between the beats of his heart.

Upstairs, he finds Harry, Tessa and Anthony sat at Gloria’s bright purple kitchen table. In the middle of the table sits an antique glass vase filled with fabric sunflowers. Each place at the table is set with one of Anthony’s laminated Thanksgiving placemats; he’d refused to let his ma change them out with something more seasonable for months, and now they seem fixed, even permanent. A mismatched assortment of cushions pads each of the purple-painted wooden chairs clustered around the table.

A pot of coffee brews atop the kitchen counter, and Gloria stands at the griddle, expertly whisking eggs. Niall stoops, mindful of the pot rack suspended from the ceiling, and gives her a good morning kiss on the cheek.

“You don’t have to go to all this trouble,” Niall starts awkwardly. Gloria teaches seventh-grade math during the school year and instructs an adult high school certificate completion program in the summer, and sometimes she tutors on top of that, too. Even with Niall’s and Tessa’s rent, it’s hard for her to keep up with mortgage payments, and the stress weighs on her. Niall feels guilty about it. He’d pay more if he could, but between scholarships and student loans and his job at the library, he still couldn’t afford a new pair of boots this winter when the sole started peeling off of his. He’d super glued it back on and hoped for the best, and it’d held together, although his boots reek of mildew now.

He helps out where he can, like when the neighbor can’t watch Anthony and the after-school programs Gloria has him enrolled in aren’t in session. Still, Niall can’t help but feel like he’s taking advantage, even selfish. Especially when she goes to the trouble of cooking them breakfast.

Gloria pushes back her graying brown hair and pinches Niall’s side. “Anybody would think I’m starving you,” she says, “and anyway, it’s for Harry.” She flashes him a rare smile, and Harry pipes up from his spot at the table, “Yeah, Niall.”

Niall rolls his eyes, collects a cup of coffee from the percolator, and goes to sit with them. “Hey, Annie. Whatcha drawing?”

“Robot,” Anthony grunts, his hand flying across a piece of orange construction paper. “Harry’s doing the gun for me.”

“Oh,” says Harry, quietly. On his piece of green construction paper, he’s been doodling flowers. “I forgot.”

“Antonio,” Gloria calls, so Anthony pushes back his seat and goes to collect the platter of fresh french toast and sausages from his ma. Tessa pulls Harry’s drawing over for a better look, a lock of her electric blue hair slipping out of the scrap of fabric she tied it back with.

Harry says nervously, “Before you start, please remember that some of us aren’t art majors.”

“What even is your major?” Niall wonders aloud. It’s one of those questions Harry adeptly avoids, probably because he doesn’t know himself. Turns out he wasn’t a tourist after all but a student at Columbia. Niall had said, “Smarty pants,” when he found out, meaning _“rich,”_ and Harry had shrugged and admitted, “My stepdad...” meaning _“I know,”_ and that had been the end of that.

Niall’s already FaceTimed Harry’s mom, who eagerly invited him to come visit them in England whenever his schedule allowed. Harry had taken his phone back when the phone call was over with a pouty look on his face. He’d said, “Not fair, is what that is. You get invited on holiday and I get told to study harder and get a job.”

“I wasn’t going to criticize,” Tessa lies, folding her arms over her silky bathrobe. She grins suddenly. “I mean, it’s miles ahead of what Niall can do.”

“Antonio,” Niall says, “ _¿Oíste eso? El fantasma?_ ” He opens his eyes wide, one hand over his heart. _“El chupacabra?”_

Gloria clucks disapprovingly, but at least Anthony laughs. Tessa tosses her hair ineffectually with a sour look in Niall’s direction. “Shut up, Horan,” she says, Gloria waving her hand to agree.

 _“Sí, señora,”_ Niall says, sharing a smile with Harry.

Outside, the early morning air feels as thick and sticky as the syrup they drizzled over their french toast. Niall checks his phone, his backpack bumping familiarly between his shoulder blades. He has two kinds of sunscreen, half a dozen PB&Js in saran wrap, and one of Tessa’s bleached towels packed inside. “Liam says he’s on his way.” Niall elbows Harry gently. “Look who’s on time,” he grins.

“Louis’s probably running later than we are, is all,” he grins.

Liam pulls up to the curb in his ancient, rumbling van. Louis opens the passenger door and climbs out, so Niall throws his backpack on the floorboards and climbs aboard. He pushes his knock-off wayfarers up his nose and buckles up. In the backseat, Harry asks Louis, “How come you’re moving - _oof._ ”

“Liam,” Louis says sweetly, “told me he’d wreck us on purpose if I didn’t stop.”

“We were on the 495, and he was trying to _moon_ somebody,” Liam hisses.

Stiffly, Louis says, “They flipped us off.”

Niall laughs out loud. He turns back to see if Harry’s laughing too, out of habit, and finds him strangely pale. “Hey,” he frowns. “You okay?”

“Hm?” Harry blinks. “Oh, yes, of course. I just,” he makes a vague hand gesture.

Niall would press, but then Liam peels away from the corner with an almighty screech of his bald tires, and Niall goes back to holding onto the door for dear life. Liam is technically a very good driver in the sense that he’s never wrecked; he’s also an atrocious driver in the sense that his passengers are slung about in the backseat with his band gear and stinky gym clothes like sneakers tumbling around a washing machine.

Niall gets to play DJ for the hour-long drive down to Coney Island since he’s sitting shotgun. He and Liam roll their windows down to let in the cool morning air, and it’s with the rush of wind, speeding tires, and Springsteen blaring that they set out.

Niall starts sweating on the walk from the parking lot (“car park,” Harry insists stubbornly) to the aquarium. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to a bunch of fish in a tank, but now he’s happy to get out of the heat. Louis, however, not so much. “I want to get drunk and ride the bumper cars,” he whines, while Liam gets them queued up for tickets.

“We can still do that,” Harry soothes him. “But first, I want to see the turtles.”

“They don’t have turtles across the pond?” Liam asks, Niall barking out a laugh.

“You just want to sneak off to a dark corner and make out with Horan,” Louis argues. Niall flushes, hoping he can blame it on the heat. Anyway, it’s not like that, exactly. Harry’s happy to sit on the toilet seat and read _The Goldfinch_ aloud one steam-dampened page at a time while Niall showers, Tessa’s bras draped over the rod and traffic sounds drifting in through the open window, and he’s happy to crawl under the covers with Niall after; Niall’s happy to curl his fingers around Harry’s while they’re waiting for the stop light to change and feel Harry’s shoulder pressed against his, swaying to the motion of the subway car, exchanging smiles with their reflections in the window.

The line moves forward, and Liam reaches back blindly with his palm up and expectant. “Pay up, boys.”

It’s nicer than Niall expected, the bright, otherworldly-looking fish drifting through glowing backlit water, silent and graceful as birds. Afterward, they tackle the vintage roller coasters, the cars rattling on the lines, feeling all too shaky. They ride the bumper cars, attempt a handful of boardwalk games, divvy up funnel cake, cotton candy, and Gloria’s PB&Js, and the fifth of vodka Louis smuggled in. Then they brave the bumper cars again, and Harry wants to try the carousel, where Louis passes out mid-ride and Niall laughs so hard he gets bucked off, too.

Liam sends them to the beach to sleep it off, leaving Harry to watch out for them while he goes to buy bottles of water. Louis throws himself down, takes off his shirt and drapes it over his face, and begins snoring almost immediately. Niall lies down more slowly on the gritty, warm sand. Waves break gently on the shore, and gulls cry overhead. Children’s laughter drifts up from the shallows.

“Wish we could stay here forever,” Niall murmurs, letting his eyes close. It feels like a million years since he woke up this morning to Harry’s onslaught of texts. Harry pushes Niall’s fringe back and cups his forehead, his touch soft and gentle and familiar.

“You’d burn,” Harry says sadly. He presses his fingers to Niall’s shoulder. “More than you already have, I mean.”

“Fuck off,” Niall says, not meaning it. Harry knows; he goes back to combing his fingers through Niall’s short hair, humming softly.

He very nearly falls asleep, too, with Harry’s hand in his hair, and the sun’s glare put off by the thick lenses of his sunglasses, the waves lapping against the shore with a noise like the road spinning by under a car’s wheels.

“Are they asleep?” Liam murmurs. Niall’s heart clenches embarrassingly. Liam’s what his ma would call a “good egg;” he’s careful with him, and they’re all careful with him, in turn, in their own ways.

“Mm,” Harry hums. He takes his hand away, and then Niall hears the telltale crackle of him twisting the cap off a plastic water bottle. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” says Liam. All’s quiet for a moment, just the gentle _shush shush_ of the waves, of the ocean breeze, of Louis’s soft snoring. “You alright?” Liam asks. “You haven’t quite seemed yourself today.”

Niall tries to suppress his surprise. Harry not himself? What does he mean?

Harry hums again noncommittally. “You know I didn’t want to come to New York at first? To Columbia, I mean.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Liam jokes dryly. Then, “Nah, didn’t know that, did I?”

Harry must nod or something, and then, “Felt like I was sending myself off, a bit. Mum and Dad - my stepdad, I mean - were all for it, you know, they were so proud of me.” He goes quiet for a moment. “And there were some things I needed to get away from. Like if I went away, it would too. But I was so homesick.” He laughs at himself; it’s a quiet, muffled thing, not his normal squawk at all. “And now...”

Niall imagines that Liam leans forward. “Something wrong, Haz?” Louis picked up the nickname from Harry’s sister one drunk phone call, and now they all use it, though it sounds wrong in their nasal American accents.

“Nah,” Harry says. Even with his eyes closed, Niall knows he’s not being entirely honest. Maybe more so because he can’t see his face: those big green eyes and that easy smile.

“I didn’t want to go to NYU,” Liam confesses. “Didn’t think there was a point. I’m not, like, great at school, and I’d rather play gigs. I tried telling my parents that, too, and my dad was alright with it, you know, he’d taken me to auditions before I could drive myself, and one time he’d twisted around in the driver’s seat so he could look me in the eye and he said, ‘You’re special, Liam. You have something special, and don’t you give up on yourself.’”

Liam laughs self-consciously. “Typical dad stuff, you know, just gassing me up. But my mother, no way was I not going to college. I kept arguing with her till one night we were watching, like, the Kardashians or some shit on the TV, and she was folding laundry, and she just looked at me like moms do. You know? Like how they’d know you were sick before you did, or that some girl had broken your heart. And she just said, ‘I worked all my life so that I could give my children the chances I never got.’ I mean, what do you say to that?”

Harry doesn’t answer. Niall reckons he’s probably shaking his head. “I don’t know, man,” Liam lets out a sigh. “I don’t really want to be a business major or whatever. But a day like today? I know I must be doing something right.”

A little kid starts bawling not so far away; Niall can hear someone, probably his big sister, come over and tell him crisply, “It was just a _hermit_ crab, Tom _my_...” She heaves a dramatic sigh. “Oh, alright, let’s find another one! Here we go, now! Come on!”

“Yeah,” Harry says. He doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

The strangest part is, if Niall really had been asleep, he wouldn’t know anything was different. Harry helps brush sand off Niall’s back when Louis wakes up and decides it’s late enough for a dinner of greasy burger and cheese fries at a kitschy place near the shore.

Harry approaches Niall while he’s parked in front of the jukebox in a corner of the diner. The greasy burger isn’t mixing as well with his hangover as he thought it would, and he can’t stop pressing the buttons to flip the CD shelves long enough to make a selection. “Hey,” says Harry.

Niall startles, and then he relaxes. “Hey yourself.”

“So, I think maybe we should reschedule,” Harry blurts out. “You staying over at mine, I mean.”

“You want to just come back to mine instead?” Niall asks. He tells himself to breathe, and swallow. “Are you feeling sick?” He reaches up to put the back of his hand to Harry’s forehead, and Harry doesn’t move, but - but that’s it, really; he’s not already leaning in, easy for it, like he always is.

“I think - I should really be alone tonight,” Harry stumbles over his own words. He bites his lip, his eyes a little wild. Niall can’t stop hearing his words to Liam, and he wants to ask if he’s thinking of going back home to England, but the words won’t come.

“There you are,” Louis says, coming up in a rush. “I’ve just hurled in the men’s room, so they’re kicking me out. Are you ready to go?”

“Actually,” Niall says quickly, “I think we’ll take the subway back. You two are alright?” He nods at Liam over Louis’s shoulder, and Liam nods back, steering Louis away before he can start to protest.

They manage to grab a couple of seats on the subway car after a woman and her teenage daughter disembarked. Niall shifts in his seat, his shoulder brushing Harry’s, their skin tacky with sweat and sea water. Harry feels almost cool against Niall’s sunburnt shoulder. He plucks up the nerve to ask, “You know you can - like, you can talk to me, right?”

“Niall,” Harry says quietly. Harry’s voice isn’t loud, but Niall can still imagine every head on a fuller carriage turning to them, like Harry’s just said something extraordinary. It’s just Niall’s name. “You were listening to Liam and I.”

“Are you mad?”

“No.” He’s quiet for a moment. Then, softly, “I’m scared.” The subway car rattles going over the lines and Niall frowns at Harry’s blurred reflection.

Harry? Scared? Niall curls his hands into fists in his lap. “Whatever it is, I’ll kill ‘em,” Niall promises.

Harry puts his hand over Niall’s. “It’s you I’m scared of,” he says. Niall’s so surprised that he doesn’t immediately answer.

They have to change lines at Herald Square. Niall expects Harry to take the stairs up and out, always quietly conscious of how much Niall hates tight spaces, but instead he pulls Niall over to a bench tucked into an alcove. The subway station’s busy with foot traffic, but nobody spares them a second glance.

“Do you remember the first night I stayed over? The night we met?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” Niall’s stomach sinks; he’s never let himself have the kind of relationship that would require a breakup, but this sounds an awful lot like one.

Harry nods, his curls bouncing. “And we watched _Stranger Things?_ ” Vaguely, Niall remembers. He doesn’t do too great with the scary stuff. “And we were talking about El, and I said I didn’t understand why everybody treated her like a monster, because she’s not bad. And you said that she did kill that guy, though?”

“I think I said ‘dude,’” Niall jokes weakly, “but yeah, so?” He remembers stealing upstairs on socked feet to grab a bag of chips from the cupboard and a couple of bottles of water, because they’d been up so long they’d gotten hungry again. He remembers Harry’s head lolling onto his shoulder, the warmth of his breath on Niall’s arm. He doesn’t really remember what silly thing they were watching on Netflix.

“Do you really think that makes her a bad person?” Harry presses. “I mean...” He trails off. “You think she was a monster?”

Niall shrugs. “I think it’s better to die a man than live to be a monster,” Niall says slowly, not sure where Harry’s going with this, hopelessly unsure what the right answer is. “But those were bad guys she killed, so.”

“And if they weren’t bad guys?” Harry asks. “What then?”

“Why are we talking about _Stranger Things_? What’s going on, Haz?” Niall scrubs a hand through his hair, wishing he didn’t feel nauseous before this conversation even started. He’s never drinking again. “If you’re blowing me off, it’s not a big deal. Just say so.”

Harry searches Niall’s face, his eyes like twin headlamps, and then he slumps against the sweating subway tile. “Right,” he mumbles.

Niall can’t sit still anymore; he stands, and his train squeals into the station. Niall takes a step toward it. “You’re sure you’re not...” he lets himself ask one more time.

“Not tonight, Ni. Sorry,” Harry mumbles.

Niall’s not stung; he insists as much the whole long way home, and to Gloria when she half-rises from the table, checking the clock in disbelief. He tips his head against the steamy shower wall and thinks, he’s _not,_ even though the feeling of turning the corner and not finding Harry sat on the brownstone steps with his hands folded between his knees, an apologetic smile on his face, felt an awful lot like missing a step on the stairs and falling a long, long way down.

* * *

 

_july_

Mrs. Payne knocks lightly before opening the door and poking her head into Liam’s bedroom. “Sorry to interrupt, boys,” she says, her smile bright and cheery. “But I thought you might want a snack.” She offers them a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Niall’s stomach rumbles so loud that Niall blushes, the tips of his ears going pink.

“Mom,” Liam groans. “We’re not babies.”

“Well, even grown men need to eat,” she says reasonably. Liam unfolds himself from the floor, one of his socks drooping down his calf, and accepts the plate from his ma. Mrs. Payne turns her cheek up and Liam kisses her sweetly and mumbles “Thanks, Mom.” He returns to his spot on the floor next to Niall, who’s stretched out on his stomach with his Spanish textbook open in front of him. “Don’t say anything,” he warns Niall.

Niall mimes zipping his lips and reaches for a cookie. They’re still warm from the oven, and soft. He hums appreciatively.

He’s been spending more time at Liam’s lately. Technically, Liam’s his oldest friend at NYU; they were thrown together as roomies at orientation last summer and spent three miserably hot days in the same dorm room with a broken AC. They’d seen each other sporadically throughout the school year, like at the homecoming pep rally and winter carnival, but they hadn’t started hanging out regularly till Liam came into the library to check out a stack of comic books. And now Niall camps out on his floor to study first- and second-conjugation verbs.

Liam picks up his game controller and shoots a look at Niall, whose efforts to get the cookie crumbs off his textbook just smear the chocolate around. That’ll be great for resale value. Maybe he’ll just hope the person at the buy-back counter won’t notice; every time he’s gone, he’s gotten a blank look, a quick glance, and a tenth of what he paid in the first place. If that. Education’s a racket. “Good to see you eating,” Liam breaks into Niall’s train of thought.

“What’s that?”

“Just, I don’t know. You’ve been looking a little thin the past few weeks. Not your normal self.”

Niall rolls his eyes and tries to dead-leg Liam from his spot on the floor. “Shut the fuck up.”

Liam grins, but he keeps his eyes on the TV, a dead giveaway there’s more on his mind than he’s letting on. “I mean it, though, bro. And not that I don’t love having you snore on my floor...”

“I don’t snore,” Niall says, and laughs, trying to make light of it. It’s unlike Liam to go in for a heart to heart. No, that’s not true. What’s more true is that Liam’s usually too generous to acknowledge that he sees past Niall’s make happy routine. “And it’s fine, Li, c’mon. I barely knew the guy.”

“You don’t have to know everything about someone to love them,” Liam reflects. Niall catches Liam looking sideways at him and it’s only the color of his eyes that stops him; Liam’s got eyes like coffee, like wood stain, like fresh-turned funeral soil, and Niall can’t ever quite bring himself to brush him off like he would someone else. “‘Cuz I mean, you probably can’t know everything about anyone.”

Niall sits up, pushes his textbook away, and reaches for the second player controller. “It’s fine,” Niall says again. He rolls his shoulders so they aren’t tucked up around his ears and flashes Liam a smile that he hopes looks easy. The last thing he wants is Liam concerned about him, like Niall’s got any reason to be upset. “Now c’mon, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Liam snorts but subsides, his brow furrowing in concentration. For a long while, all Niall can hear are the furious sounds their fingers make tapping against the buttons, the sounds of suburban Queens traffic drifting in through the cracked window, and their muttered, “Shit,” and “Hell, yes! Got ‘em!”

It’s not like Niall hasn’t tried texting, or even calling. He got ghosted; that’s all there is to it.

Ghosted. _Ghosted_. There’s a word for a noun that becomes a verb, not that Niall remembers what it is. Still, he thinks about it on the subway ride back to his place, where Louis’s waiting patiently on the front steps with Anthony, and while he’s stood in the bodega around the corner. Gloria needed something for dinner, but she doesn’t like sending Anthony out on his own just yet.

Someday he’ll be at least as big as Niall, if not bigger; his dad was tall and fit, “a catch,” Gloria had winked when she caught Niall looking at the pictures on the wall one of his first days there. Niall will probably be long-gone by the time Annie’s all grown up.

Maybe he’ll have graduated and gone home to Boston, or moved somewhere else for work, or maybe he’ll have just gotten his own place. He can’t imagine leaving these familiar streets, though: the sidewalks he could recognize by the sound of his own steps, and the regular shrieking cries of the subway cars pulling into the station, the trees as steady as old friends.

There’s a rack of homemade potato chips in front of him, and a shelf of candy bars behind. On the end cap is a display of red and white wine, and in the coolers there are bottles of water, orange juice, apple juice, sodas, and twenty different types of beer. It’s just a bodega, no different than any other, but Harry bought Niall’s water and granola bar before work once, absent-mindedly stroking the back of Niall’s neck as they were rung up at the till. The day seemed endless, the summer infinite. So it’s not just the same as any other bodega, you see.

 _Ghosted_ , Niall repeats to himself. It feels like pressing his tongue to the empty spot where there used to be a tooth. It’s not a bad word for it.

“What’re you getting?” Louis asks, rounding the corner. Anthony is sat up on his shoulders with a loaf of bread dangling from his hand and a lollipop staining his mouth bright red.

“Louis,” Niall sighs. “Gloria’s going to literally kill me if you keep sneaking her kid all that candy. Dentists are expensive.” He reckons Louis does it out of guilt to the fifty million little sisters he left at home in New Jersey, so he tries not to give him that hard a time about it. “Brush your teeth when we get home, eh?” he asks Anthony, who nods agreeably.

Louis keeps his hands wrapped securely around Anthony’s ankles, but he shoots Niall a long-suffering look. “Remember when you used to be happy, Nialler? Whatever happened to that boyish innocence? Hm? Whatever happened to -” Niall steps on his foot and Louis hisses, tilting sideways so that Anthony wraps his arms around Louis’s head and lets out a little delighted cry.

“Let’s just pay and get out of here,” Niall says, shooing Louis to the register before they get kicked out and uninvited back. Again.

“Seriously, though, bro,” Louis picks up the the thread of their conversation outside. The summer seems only to get hotter; the trees have been sun-bleached from a lush and verdant green to a jaundiced lime. Even the red-brick storefronts on Cornelia street look petrified and chalky. Niall puts on sunscreen when he remembers, but his skin stays a stubborn shade of pale pink, and more freckles dot the tops of his shoulders than ever before. He doesn’t feel like he’ll ever stop sweating, like he’ll have to be starched and ironed to keep from sliding out of his desk. “It might be time to move on.”

“Have you been talking to Liam?” Niall asks suspiciously.

Louis doesn’t try to lie, to his credit. “Yeah. We’ve been kind of worried about you.”

Niall stops walking. “Is this,” he pauses, thinks, forges ahead, “is this, like, an intervention? You two agreed to tag team me?”

Louis grins wickedly. “Watch your language with the kiddies about, babes,” he just says. He jogs up the stairs ahead of Niall, who loiters on the sidewalk. He contemplates just taking the basement entrance and crawling under his covers in the hopes of slipping into hibernation; apparently he hasn’t even been disguising his pathetic feelings from his friends. But Gloria’s cooking, and now that Liam mentions it, he can’t remember the last time he had a good meal. Niall sighs and trots up the stairs behind them.

Louis’s just bending down to let Anthony slide off of his shoulders when Niall finishes kicking off his trainers. He hears Tessa march down the stairs before he sees her. The hem of her florid skirt comes into view at the top of the stairs, and then she bends down to see. “Oh,” she says, sounding strangely disappointed. “It’s just you.”

Louis leans back into the foyer to grin at her, his smile a grotesque mix of charming and desperate. Niall wants to push him into the hall closet. “Not quite,” he says.

Niall narrows his eyes.

“Ugh,” Tessa rolls her eyes and disappears back upstairs, presumably to her own room.

“I’d love to see whatever you’ve been working on!” Louis calls up hopefully. The fact that he doesn’t get a response doesn’t seem to diminish his mood any. “She came down to see me,” he crows, and jabs Niall in the gut.

Niall waits till Louis’s throwing himself across Niall’s bed to ask him, “Is that why you’ve been coming around so much?” He folds his arms across his chest for good measure. “And dressed like that?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Louis says. He rolls over and fishes Niall’s laptop out from under his stomach. He lifts the lid and taps in Niall’s password, the back of his neck stained pink.

“Mmhm.” Niall circles the bed so that there’s no way Louis can avoid looking at him. Poor idiot. He can’t be all that comfortable in the lame getup his internship has him in. “Why you think that girl wants a man in a suit and tie, Louis, I’ll never know.”

Louis freezes, and then he melts against the sheets, letting out a pitiful sound. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Niall!” he wails.

“Apparently not,” Niall grins. He drops down on the bed beside Louis. “I don’t approve of this, by the way. You’re gonna hook up and I’m either going to have to hear it, or I’m going to have Gloria coming to me in _extreme_ discomfort to see if I can ask you two to be more quiet.”

Louis props himself up on his elbow. “Yes,” he muses. “That all sounds wonderful to me, Nialler.” He reaches over and cups Niall’s cheek, his expression going soft. “For real, though?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to her. See what she thinks.”

“You’re a good friend,” Louis says. He pulls up Netflix on Niall’s laptop.

“That’s why you’ve been staying here so much, though, yeah?” Niall checks. He fidgets with the tattered hem of his shirt. He’s worn and washed every t-shirt and tank top he owns so many times that they’re all getting threadbare; he needs to plan another trip to the thrift store soon. Worst case scenario, he’ll just cut the sleeves off whatever he can dig out of the bargain bin. “Not ‘cause...”

In lieu of answering, Louis clicks around for a bit, sifting through Niall’s to-watch list like he hasn’t already seen all the titles Niall thought might be interesting. “Nothing’s quite like your first heartbreak,” is all Louis says. Then he hits play on _Peaky Blinders,_ so Niall accepts it for the mercy it is.

A few days later, Niall stumbles home late from a party in Brooklyn. He lets himself in through the basement, washes his face, and decides he could go for a snack. He takes the stairs as quietly as he can, mindful of waking Gloria or Anthony.

“Hey.” A soft voice at the kitchen table makes him jump clear out of his skin.

“Jeez! Gloria,” Niall puts his hand over his heart. “Jeez. Sorry. I didn’t see you there.” He dithers in the doorway. Without his own parents around, Gloria’s filled in that space in Niall’s life. No matter how old he gets, he doesn’t think he’ll outgrow the fear of getting home past curfew.

Gloria smiles faintly. “I could tell.” She watches him collect a bowl of cereal in the dark; she’d left the lights off, so he will, too. Niall sits down kitty corner to her. Gloria looks exhausted, frankly; she rests her head on the palm of her hand. Dark shadows ring her eyes, and she wears the world-weary expression of someone for whom sleep is no repeal.

For a moment, all he can hear is the satisfying crunch of his own chewing and the clink of his spoon against the side of his bowl. “Everything okay?” Niall asks eventually. The room feels altogether too quiet, and hollow, like the space in a photograph when nobody’s in it. Niall doesn’t think of the kitchen without imagining her bustling around and Anthony talking a mile a minute.

“Oh, yes,” says Gloria. She sits up with some effort. “Certification exams are coming up, so it’s crunch time. I know you understand. Speaking of which, how is class going?”

Niall shrugs. “It’s summer, so I’d rather be at the pool, or the park. But nah, it’s not that bad. Plus, I have the little man to help me out. And hey, if you ever need me to watch him -”

“Oh, no,” Gloria clucks disapprovingly. She reaches over and puts her hand on Niall’s wrist. “He adores you, and you do more than enough.” Niall blinks in surprise. He’d always thought he didn’t do enough. Gloria goes on, “You know, when I heard someone on the stairs, I thought you were Harry.”

Niall’s heart skips a beat. “Harry?” he repeats blankly.

“Tessa told me they used to bump into each other on their midnight snack runs pretty often,” Gloria answers. Niall reels in surprise for the second time in as many minutes. She offers Niall a conciliatory smile. “You didn’t know?”

“No,” Niall says. He tells himself he doesn’t mind, either. It’s not about him. And it’s true that it’s not; he thinks of Tessa perched on the windowsill in the laundry room while Gloria sorted the dirty clothes into piles, and how he hadn’t realized that just because she hardly talked to him, doesn’t mean she didn’t talk to _anyone_. He wonders suddenly if she misses him like he does.

Gloria suggests, “Maybe he didn’t want to disappoint you.” She shrugs and fingers the frayed edge of her son’s homemade placemat. “You’re a good person, so you expect everybody else to be good, too.”

“Oh, I’m not -” Niall starts to argue, and then he stops himself. Nobody sees themselves the way they are, he’d thought before; they see themselves the way they _think_ they are. Maybe the inverse is true, too: nobody sees anybody else the way they think they are. Little wonder that Niall had made so many false assumptions, then.

Back in bed, Niall tells the empty room the same thing he’d told Liam. It sounds like a confession now. “I didn’t even know him that well.”

That’s the thing, is all. He thought he did.

* * *

 

_august_

Liam kicks the ball Niall’s direction, so Niall darts in to claim it. He drives it toward the opposing team’s goal, and the goalie who’s standing in the goal drinking a bottle of water and checking his phone. Louis cuts into Niall’s space like a knife; he digs his elbow into Niall’s gut, the dirty fucking cheater, and snakes his foot out to kick the ball away from both of them.

Oli’s there to catch it, of course; the two of them are practically mind-melded. It makes them absolutely dreadful to play against. Oli drives the ball all the way back up the field and manages to kick the ball into the goal, nothing but net. Louis and Oli throw up their arms and cheer, and Liam bends in half, his hands on his knees. “How is he so good at this,” Liam pants, “when he won’t even help carry his own groceries?”

“You carry his groceries for him? Liam, buddy,” Niall starts. He’s interrupted by Louis running past splashing Gatorade in the air like their very own fountain. It comes down in a sticky blue and red rain. “Louis!”

“Can’t catch me,” Louis teases. He goes into a strange dance that’s caught somewhere between a shimmy and a pelvic thrust; he looks like he’s having a seizure. “I’m the motherfucking soccer champion!”

Niall gives up and lays down on the ground. If Louis’s that amped up, he’s going to be running circles around them for the next half-hour at least, gassing himself up until Liam wrestles him into a headlock and chokes him till he stops. The sun overhead beats down on them with the force of a baseball bat.

He keeps thinking that the heat will break, and that the weather will finally turn, but it’s shown no signs of changing yet. Liam says there’s three or four weeks of proper summer left before the heat even begins to let up. Niall’s finally gotten into the habit of putting sunscreen on every time he leaves the house, but the tops of his shoulders and the bridge of his nose have taken on a permanent sunkissed tinge.

At least Spanish II is finally over. Niall scraped by with a B+, and not without help from both Anthony and Gloria. Louis pulls his shirt off and starts twirling it over his head like a lasso surely, Niall thinks, just to annoy him and Liam and their goalie, Sophia. Niall has three glorious weeks without school left to enjoy, and that’s precisely what he intends to do. If he ever gets up. The grass feels soft and cool under his back, and it smells sweet and ripe. The sky is a pale blue brushed with clouds like one of Tessa’s paintings.

“Oi,” Liam kicks him gently. “Get up, we’re going to get food.”

“Ooh.” Niall perks up at that. He can feel grass sticking to him when he sits up; Liam kindly brushes it off. The hair stands up on the back of Niall’s neck, and he tenses, positive that somebody’s watching him. He raises his hand and shields his eyes against the sunlight, but he can’t see anyone. Still, the feeling remains.

After lunch, he peels off from the group to take a quick shower and head to work. Last week the graduate students started trickling back in, and this week the little kiddies coming to orientation have been passing through. It’s wild how young those freshman look; Niall was one just last year, but he can’t imagine ever looking that naive, or that in awe.

Their orientation camp leaders will be telling them all about Bobst’s sordid history and the ghost stories surrounding both the library and Washington Square Park, of course. Niall’s never been much bothered by the stories about the park having been built on a graveyard (that one turned out to be true, actually), or that the library’s evil namesake haunted the place (jury’s still out on that one), but today, Niall can’t shake the feeling that _someone’s_ watching him. Ghost stories aside, he usually likes the library’s interior glass walls and how large the space feels. The height, maybe, not so much, but at least he doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating.

He ducks into the library’s back room just for a bit of a breather, and then he finishes the last hour and a half of his shift checking his watch every five minutes. By the time Niall clocks out, he’s all but ready to sprint home.

He puts his head down and stuffs his hands into his pockets. He’s like as not to have the cops called on him for running, and he doesn’t want to scare anybody out on their own. He fumbles for his earbuds, and in a hoarse whisper, he hears somebody murmur, “Niall.”

Niall freezes in his tracks like an absolute fucking moron. He swallows, then turns around. Nobody’s there. Not even Al, the man who hangs out at the park all day talking to the pigeons, is out. “Who’s there?” Niall asks. No answer comes.

Fuck screwing your courage to the sticking place, Niall thinks, and sets off for home at a jog. He’s halfway across the park when he hears it again. “Niall.”

Oh, God. If there’s a lunatic murderer on Niall’s tail, he can’t well lead them home, can he? Anthony lives there, and his ma, and Tessa. Okay, well, Tessa could probably kick its ass, but - okay, but what is Niall going to _do?_

He swallows, and then he makes himself slow to a walk, and then he stops entirely. “Hello?” he tries again, and this time when he turns, there’s someone stood behind him.

“Ah!” Niall cries and falls back, and Harry pushes his fringe back and offers him a pained grimace. “Motherfucker!” Niall says, more out of blossoming anger than surprise. “What the fuck is the matter with you? Harry. What...Haz, what’s wrong with you?” He’s drenched in sweat, for one; his hair is matted with it, and his eyes have a desperate, feverish glint. He’s holding himself tightly, too, like it pains him to move. “Did someone hurt you?”

“It’s, ah,” Harry tries to laugh, but his voice cracks halfway through. Harry’s so hapless and bumbling; Niall remembers the first time they met - not far from here, in fact - with startling clarity, and he has to combat a sudden, overwhelming wave of protectiveness. He hesitates for a moment, and then he reaches out to Harry, who plunges toward him gratefully. “It’s, ah, sort of hard to explain.”

“Harry,” Niall says. He cups Harry’s forehead and finds him burning up at the touch. “C’mon, I’m taking you to the ER.”

“No!” Harry plants his feet with sudden, unexpected strength. “You can’t, Niall, you can’t let them find out -”

Niall says, “Okay, okay,” just to get Harry to calm down.

“No, you don’t understand!” Harry says. He’s practically shouting. Niall circles his arm around Harry’s shoulders and pulls him into his side, but Harry keeps shaking his head. “I know you’ll think it’s lunacy,” Harry says. His lips twitch, the first time he’s looked like himself all evening. “No pun intended. But I -”

Whatever he was going to say is lost in the sudden change in the shape of his jaw. It’s like one moment he’s normal, frizzy-haired, fruit-smelling, clingy Harry, and the next he has a...snout. Like a dog. Or...

“Fuck!” Niall shouts. He jumps back, and the change recedes, leaving Harry looking exhausted but human. Oh, my God, Niall thinks. He’s going nuts.

“I did try to tell you,” Harry says miserably. “I’m a werewolf, Niall.”

“You -” Niall starts, and then he stops. He vaguely remembers Harry drunkenly pulling on Niall’s arm at a house party till Niall leaned in close enough for him to whisper a secret, his secret, in his ear. Niall pulled back to find Harry’s red lips curving upwards in a nervous smile. “Okay,” Niall had said, “then I’m a vampire.”

He remembers kissing the shine off Harry’s lips, and he remembers begging Liam to take them through the McDonald’s drive-thru. He never had been able to get the chocolate shake stains out of his shorts. “You were serious,” Niall says. He feels overwhelmed with regret, also shame, because Harry tried to be honest with him and Niall laughed in his face.

Harry babbles the whole time Niall muscles him off the path and under the protective shade of an elm tree. Niall lets Harry slide to the ground; his eyes glint amber in the moonlight. “I tried -” he pants, his breathing labored, “- to stay away, but, ah, the homing instinct, it’s very strong.” Harry slumps to the ground, his eyes wide open, shining like silver dollars.

“Fuck,” Niall repeats. He whips out his phone and starts making calls. “Louis? Are you in town this weekend? You just got out of your internship, _perfect._ Listen, I need you to come over right away. Yeah, the park. And - I’m fine, but Louis, _hurry,_ please. I,” he turns and sees Harry, his skin rippling like a wave, and says, “I gotta go, call Liam too, yeah? Have him bring the van. Good. Love you, Lou.”

He pockets his phone and kneels next to Harry, whose gaze rolls until it lands on Niall. He manages a smile. “I, ah,” Harry says. He reaches out. Claws sprout out of the tips of his fingers, recede, and then reemerge. Niall takes his hand anyway, the bones shifting under Harry’s soft skin. “I’m trying to hold it off. You gotta go, Niall.” His teeth begin chattering. “I just came to warn you.”

“Go where?” Niall asks. He holds Harry’s hand between both of his like he can push down the monster emerging out from under Harry’s skin, like a piece of cloth slowly sinking into water. “I’m not leaving you.”

“You should,” Harry says. He shuts his eyes, his face twisting in pain, and weathers a whole-body shutter. “Not long now,” he murmurs.

Niall licks his lips. “I’m so sorry, Harry, I didn’t believe you. I -” He wants to explain about what Gloria helped him understand and how he understands now, but Harry cuts him off.

“Shh,” Harry says. “I didn’t - want you to.” He fights for every breath. His miserable smile is still the sweetest thing Niall’s ever seen. “Better to, ah, be a bad man than a good monster, right?”

“No,” Niall says, holding on harder. “And you’re not a monster.” He corrects himself, “You’re no more a monster than I am.”

“I,” Harry draws in a painful-sounding breath, his ribs cracking in a way that turns Niall’s stomach to water. “I stayed, ah, in the tube tunnels last time. Went down and got myself lost, didn’t I, so I wouldn’t hurt anyone.” He muffles a whimper too late; Niall frees one of his hands so he can cradle Harry’s head in his palm. Harry turns into the touch, as easy and affectionate as if he’d never kept himself away. “You’ve got to, ah,” he lets out another muffled little cry of pain, “put me away somewhere.”

Niall shakes his head. “Shh. We’re not doing that.”

“Niall?” Louis’s distinct voice catches Niall’s attention. He leans away from Harry and shouts, “Over here!”

“Oh, my God?” Louis says, drawing close. “What the fuck?” The way he says it, it sounds like a question. “Niall?”

“It’s Harry,” Niall says. “He needs help.”

“He needs a fucking doctor, did he get stabbed?” Louis asks. He makes to move forward and a growl tears its way out of Harry’s throat.

Harry cuts it off a moment too late. He coughs slightly. “Sorry,” he tells Lou.

“Um,” says Louis.

“You told Liam to bring the van, right?” Niall asks. “Would you mind going and waiting for him?”

Blankly, Louis says, “There’s no parking on the street.”

“It’s an emergency, Lou,” Niall says, as firmly as he can. Louis snaps his gaze to Niall’s, his face very pale. “Go on. Please, Louis.”

Niall turns back to Harry. His claws aren’t receding anymore, and his skin isn’t soft but coarse and furry. “Soon,” Niall says. He’s not sure what they’re going to do, but “Soon,” he promises him, Harry locking his jaw and nodding.

“Sorry,” Harry murmurs in agreement.

Niall opens his mouth to respond, and Louis calls, “Boys! Liam!”

Liam leaves the van idling at the curb and crosses the park in long, quick strides. Niall stands, doing his best to bring Harry with him. He ducks under the branches and visibly pales, the color leaching out of his eyes. “Oh, my god. Niall, how...?” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. Did anybody see you? We’ll need to hide the body.”

“Liam,” Louis starts laughing with his head ducked under Harry’s arm. “We didn’t kill him, buddy.”

“But thanks for the loyalty,” Niall says, breathless under the bulk of Harry’s weight. “He’s a werewolf.”

“He’s...” Liam trails off. “Oh?” He sounds just like Mrs. Payne. “Is that so?”

Harry lets out another soft cry of pain, and Niall hurries to the van. He shoves Liam’s acoustic guitar aside, the instrument letting out a bemused-sounding wail, and climbs into the back with Harry. Louis shuts the door for them and climbs into the passenger seat. “Where do we go?” he asks, his eyes on Liam. Louis looks at Niall. “Niall? Where are we going?”

“I...” Niall looks at Harry, whose head rests in his lap. He’s burning hot to the touch, and dripping with sweat. He’s holding on as hard as he can, Niall knows. It won’t be enough. He needs space, and a place where nobody will see him. Where can you go for space in one of the most densely inhabited places on earth?

If they took him south, they might be able to catch the ferry to Staten Island, but that’d take at least another hour, and Harry doesn’t seem to have it in him. They could try the riverbank, but anybody would think they were there to dump a body. Where else is there? And somewhere close. Time’s running out. “Central Park,” Niall says. “We’ll take him to the park.”

“You heard him,” Louis says, clapping Liam on the shoulder. Liam punches the gas so that they peel out.

It’s good he’s going so fast, Niall thinks. Still, “Um, not to alarm anyone,” he calls. “But how much longer?”

“Maps says fifteen minutes,” Louis calls back. “What’s up?” He climbs into the backseat for a better look, the top of his head peeping over the final row of seats. “Jesus,” Louis gasps.

“It’s just,” Niall wrestles Harry’s body to keep him from knocking his head against the floor or the wall of the van, his body twitching all over the place. “I think if we’re not going to get there soon, we’re going to be in a pretty hairy situation back here.” Harry gnashes his teeth; they’re not small, blunt human teeth anymore, either, but big fangs.

A bubble of hysterical laughter rises in Niall’s chest before it bursts abruptly. He thinks of Little Red Riding hood and her grandma, and then what happens to her grandma and the little girl in some versions of the story, and swallows hard. “Please hurry,” Niall says.

“Faster!” Louis cries. He climbs over the row of seats and dumps himself back into the passenger seat, his voice cracking with tension.

Through the rear window, Niall can see the moon steadily rising in the sky. He remembers having learned in science class that nobody really even knows where the moon came from. It might be an asteroid caught in Earth’s gravitational field, or a piece of the earth itself having been chipped off by a meteor crash. It seems mad all of a sudden that no one should know precisely what the moon is, or where it came from.

“Niall,” Harry murmurs. His eyes are just a slit, his full lips bitten and bloody. His fingers curl around Niall’s arms so tight it ought to hurt; instead, it feels comforting.

Niall waits for him to speak, but he seems beyond words. Niall leans down and presses his forehead to Harry’s. “Everything’s gonna be alright,” Niall finds himself promising. “It’s all gonna be fine.”

Harry sucks in a deep breath, and his eyes fly open. Niall understands at once. “Liam, stop! Pull over!”

“We’re almost there!”

“We’re not gonna make it, and I’m telling you to pull over! Li - oh, Christ!” Niall lets go of Harry so that he can pull his tender human skin out of reach; Harry lies shuddering on the floorboards, his eyes rolling so far back in his head that all that’s left is the whites of his eyes.

“This was so much less fucked up in the movies!” Louis says, standing up in his seat to see Harry. “Liam, stop the car!”

“We’re - here!” Liam jerks the wheel, the car spins out a little and rights itself, and Liam pumps the brake.

Niall finds himself pressed up against the wall of the car with Harry next to him, his skin erupting in long, silky fur, his claws and teeth enlarging the longer Niall looks. “Jesus!”

Liam and Louis pull the van doors open, and Harry rolls out onto the ground. By the time Niall picks himself up and follows after, Harry’s gone, and a wolf stands in his wake. Niall sags against the doorframe. “Holy shit,” he breathes. He tenses. “He’s not - Harry, you’re - It’s still us, love...” Niall stops and swallows, tensed to move. He waits to see what Harry will do.

The wolf inches closer, its ears pricked up, and on instinct, Niall holds out his hand.

“Oh, my God,” Louis mutters, half-hidden behind Liam.

The wolf draws closer. Holding himself within biting distance reminds Niall of competing with Greg to see who could leave their hand in a bowl of ice water for longer. It hurts, but he’s determined. Then, to his utter surprise, the wolf nudges its big, silky head under Niall’s palm like a dog kindly demanding to be petted. Asking to be loved. Niall lets out a shaky laugh. Harry’s green eyes flicker to him, and then he - the wolf, Harry; Niall can admit, somehow, that they’re the same thing now -  dances back, more graceful on four feet than Harry’s ever been on two.

Then it throws its head back and howls, a long, spiraling cry that raises the hair on Niall’s arms and the back of his neck. The wolf lowers its head, eyeing Niall for a moment, and then it turns and darts into the treeline.

“Jesus,” Niall breathes. He puts his hand over his heart and sits down heavily.

“Niall,” says Louis. The darkness obliterates the finer points of Louis’s features, but Niall would know them in pitch black: nothing but angular lines like exclamation points, and barely contained laughter. He clears his throat. “Is it too soon to make a joke about furries?”

Liam does Niall the favor of hitting Louis for him. “What now?” Liam asks.

Niall heaves a deep breath. “We wait, I guess.”

Liam spares a moment to move the van somewhere it won’t get towed, and then the three of them wander into the park. Niall’s been plenty of times when the sun’s up, usually to show his friends and family who come visit. The park is dark and eerie at night, not least because of the low-lying fog that seems to be seeping up from the ground. In a peculiar way, it’s comforting to know that the strangest thing afoot tonight is Harry.

Louis veers away when the Met comes into view, so they gather together on the stairs. Niall leans back on his elbows and lets out a breath. The moon hangs overhead like a giant lamp, and Niall’s reminded again of how much the night sky is like the blanket draped over the top of a pillow fort, the starlight shining through like pinpricks of lamps. It’s not such a scary thing, then, the darkness.

Harry trots out of the underbrush just before dawn. His eyes catch the light like prisms, both unsettling and entirely natural at the same time. Niall stands up too quickly, his bad knee gone stiff overnight.

“I don’t believe it,” Niall breathes. He hadn’t recognized him in the darkness.

Louis whips his head around to look at Niall. “What?” he asks.

“I know - I’ve seen this wolf before. Before tonight, I mean.” One stormy night, months ago now, a dog whined outside his door to be let in.

They watch Harry approach. Niall’s careful not to move, but he’s also conscious of Louis and Liam inching closer to him, whether to protect him or for protection he doesn’t know. He smells like a dog, is Niall’s first thought. Though there’s something musty about it, also earthen, and tinged with the coppery flavor of blood. Behind him, Louis jostles Liam’s shoulder so that he lifts his head out of his lap.

“Okay?” Niall asks tentatively. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for, but as he watches, the strange spell that transformed Harry into a wolf begins to unravel. Niall can see it happening like pulling on the loose thread of a sweater; first, Harry’s soft skin appears in flashes of his thinning fur. His fangs shrink, and his snout recedes, his bones cracking as they shift and reform. Then it’s just Harry again, covered in dirt, mud, blood, and grass stains.

Harry wraps his arms around himself. He looks exhausted; dark purple shadows underscore his eyes, and his nail beds are bloodstained and muddy. Still, he lifts his chin in a show of bravado. “So,” he says. “You believe me now?”

Unexpectedly, Niall laughs. It’s like all the tension goes out at once; behind him, Louis and Liam let out relieved breaths, and even Harry’s tense shoulders slump. He looks cold in the early morning air, and Niall says, “Yeah, idiot. C’mon, let’s get you home.”

Harry leaves his eyes closed the whole way back to Niall’s apartment, whether out of exhaustion or shame or a combination of both, Niall doesn’t know. He puts on Liam’s spare sweats and climbs into the backseat, his body held taut and away from Niall’s until Niall cups his hand around the back of his neck and pulls Harry’s head down to his shoulder.

And he tells his story relentlessly, though he seems on the verge of an asthma attack. “I had been using an old basement on campus,” Harry explains, Louis twisted around in the front seat to look at Niall and Harry, Liam’s eyes bright in the rearview mirror, “but I didn’t realize the building would be closed for summer break. The change - sometimes it comes earlier, sometimes later. Back in May, I didn’t know what would happen, and I didn’t know what I’d done. I was retracing my steps, trying to track myself by smell...”

Louis wrinkles his nose. “You can do that?”

“I couldn’t have gotten so far south without the rain for cover. I don’t know how I found you, or why; I thought I might have been hunting you.”

Niall strains to remember whether he’d felt hunted, or tracked, on his walk home from work that night, but he can’t recall. It’s too far gone, just a part of the unchangeable past, now. Harry’s head is heavy and comforting on his shoulder, his short curls soft. “You didn’t hurt me,” Niall reassures him. Or Annie, for that matter, or Gloria or Tessa. Niall had mistaken him for a dog.

Liam pulls up to the curb outside Niall’s apartment. Louis reassures him again that yes, it’s fine that he has to get home before Mrs. Payne discovers him missing and declares a state of national emergency. Niall concentrates on getting Harry out of the van. He slumps between Niall and Louis as Niall fits his key in the door and eases it open as quietly as possible. Pearlescent pre-dawn light seeps in through the window above the door, and the thought occurs to Niall that he’s never been up at this hour before; the house in all its familiarity feels strangely new. There’s a lot of that going around, he supposes.

The sound of footsteps carries down the stairs, and Niall, Harry, and Louis go still. Niall holds his breath.

Tessa bends over to peer down the stairs without bothering to come all the way down, as usual. She blinks, frowns, squints, and then pales in surprise. “Niall?” she calls, her voice hoarse and raspy. “Louis? Is that Harry?”

“Yeah, he’s okay,” Niall says. Well, okay might be a bit of an overstatement. Harry has gone more or less limp between them, and Niall’s beginning to wonder whether he ought to rethink his stance on hospitals. He starts chewing on the inside of his cheek.

Tessa descends the rest of the way down the stairs. She lifts Harry’s face to the light, her fingers under his chin. “Jesus,” she murmurs. Harry’s pale skin is streaked and dirty, and dark purple circles shadow his eyes. He cracks an eye open, and the corner of his mouth twitches up. “Did someone drug him?” Tess demands. “Is he hurt?”

“No, he...” Niall can’t think of a good explanation; he founders, his mind spinning fruitlessly, like a tire stuck in the mud.

“We were at a party,” Louis breaks in. “Ecstasy was going around, you know how it is. He decided to go streaking. Fell over.”

Niall sends up a prayer of gratitude for Louis’s quick thinking. Tessa blows her bright orange fringe back, puts a hand on her hip, and sighs. “We’ve all been there,” she says. Then, “You look almost as bad as he does - Niall and I can take it from here.”

“I’m not leaving, I -”

“I know,” Tessa says. “I meant you can take my bed.”

“She’s right, Lou, you’ve done enough. Thanks, man.”

Tessa adds, “Just help us get him up the stairs, yeah? And quietly.”

Niall doesn’t think any of the four of them breathe as they pass Gloria’s room, and then Louis’s falling face-first onto Tessa’s bed, and Niall and Tessa are manhandling Harry into the shower as gently as possible. Niall’s never bathed anyone before unless you count Theo, and it’s harder than he expected it to be; he’s glad Tessa’s there to help.

They towel him off, get him dressed, and bundle him back downstairs. Harry crumples into Niall’s bed. He starts snoring before his head even hits the pillow.

“You’ll tell me everything,” Tessa asks, “someday, right?”

Niall snorts. “Yeah, probably. Go on - I bet Louis’s still waiting for you.”

Tessa squeezes Niall’s arm on her way out. Niall kicks off his jeans and climbs under the covers. Harry murmurs groggily, “You sure you want me here?” His jaw cracks with a yawn. Niall throws his leg over Harry’s hip and pulls Harry’s arm over his side the way he know he likes so that they’re nearly braided together from top to toe.

"I think you scare yourself more than you scare me," Niall says. Maybe there’s a little bit of the wolf in everyone, though perhaps not quite so literally. Niall shuffles closer still.

“Tomorrow,” Harry says, his eyes closed, “I want to go swimming...and see a baseball game. The overnight film fest at the theater, and ice cream...and hot dogs...” Niall falls asleep with Harry still reeling off the list of things he wants to do, a feeling like the summer need never end.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u so much for reading! if u enjoyed this lil story, hit that motherfuckin kudos button and then go wish [kate](http://www.wickershire.tumblr.com/) a v happy bday. comments/kudos are much appreciated, and if u need me, i'm on [tumblr](http://www.niallspringsteen.tumblr.com/) !


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